#RubyZoneBlog

ruby as the hero from dragon quest 1

Dragon Quest

I love Dragon Quest!

2022-11-14

Ruby May Valentine

Arbitrary link

an orange cat who is a good boy

Hello again!

Hope anyone reading this is doing well today, if not I hope your day gets better! I wanted to talk about Dragon Quest a bit today! I first learned about Dragon Quest More formally in May of 2022, however I had played Yakuza: Like a Dragon beforehand But didn’t really pay attention to the Dragon Quest part, at least the title, I sort of assumed it was a generic rpg name they came up with for the game, criminal, I know. Flash forward and now I’m obsessed with Dragon Quest and everything to do with it, and give it the proper respect it deserves.

If you don’t know about Dragon Quest it’s considered the first home video game console RPG and is massively influential to pretty much all RPGs that came after it, as well as many other things, from movies to television shows (highly recommend The Brave Yoshihiko btw). Pokémon for instance was inspired by Dragon Quest V for the Super Famicom, iirc Dragon Quest V was basically the first monster taming game, at the very least the most influential, especially at the time of its release. I have very many Dragon Quest titles on disc or cassette, as well as some digital only copies on Mobile (iOS) and Nintendo Switch, I have yet to play them all but I did however finally beat Dragon Quest 1 for the first time a couple of weeks ago and I’m very pleased with myself, I played the remake of the original Famicom game for Super Famicom, it’s probably my favorite version of the game at least in terms of graphical style, I really wish they would’ve used the graphics from the Super Famicom version for the mobile and switch ports, they went with a Dragon Quest III Super Famicom remake style which is also good but it removed a cool fog effect from one of the towns that I really enjoy looking at when I’m in that town.

ANYWAY

Dragon Quest has really changed my life, it’s brought me a great amount of joy and basically endless entertainment, as well as huge amounts of inspiration for my own work and art, I’d really like to make my own turn based RPG eventually because of it, I’ve been getting more into making pixel art and sprites in my free time because of it and can’t wait to be able to apply the game development skills I’m learning to making my own game, it’ll be fun to see what I end up coming up with! I’ll probably end up releasing it on itch, and if it becomes ambitious enough, steam.

I’m really excited for Dragon Quest XII, yep twelve titles, and that’s just the main games lol, apparently it’s going to have a darker theme to the story which seems like a fun change for the series, it’s usually mostly lighthearted, and a lot of other people seem to be really excited about it, they also are revamping the combat system apparently but I guess staying true to the basic mechanics as well which is good to hear, I really like turn based combat so it’s nice to hear it’ll still be around for the next major entry, Dragon Quest XII doesn’t have a release date yet but I’ll be patiently waiting for it, also it’ll be the first game to be released at the same time globally instead of in Japan first, so I think I’ll get it in English for convenience since I’m still a beginner with learning Japanese!

If you’re interested in Dragon Quest after reading this, and I hope you are, here’s my top recommendations for games you should consider playing from the series!

Dragon Quest I

I recommend the NES release versus the Famicom release (especially if you don’t know any Japanese) mostly because it has a save battery, but also if you’re looking for something more modern I recommend the switch or mobile versions! They’re both great, the switch version has a bit of a strange graphical style but I recommend it anyway, it honestly grew on me after a while. Also a big tip for playing Dragon Quest games, especially the first one, is to talk to everyone you see in towns and such! It’s a great way to get around and figure out where to go without the use of a guide, though I recommend a guide if you get stuck, there’s plenty out there thankfully!

Dragon Quest XI S:

Echoes of an Elusive Age – Definitive Edition

A bit weird to jump this far ahead probably but I can’t recommend this game enough, specifically the definitive edition with the crazy title you see up above, it’s possibly the best turn based RPG of all time, this is what really made me fall in love with the series after playing the first one for a bit, and made me want to play every single Dragon Quest game in existence. It’s on Switch, PS4, and Steam, I have the switch and PS4 versions but I guess Steam is the best. The great thing about the definitive edition other than being on more accessible platforms is that you can play the game in either a 2D pixel art style or full 3D graphics like a typical modern game, I’ve only played the 2D version, which I highly recommend doing, but also plan to play the 3D version too, the 3D version doesn’t have random encounters while the 2D version does, and some major cutscenes are still in 3D in the 2D version, and they look incredible as well! I hope if you play any Dragon Quest you play this one, because it’ll likely get you hooked on the series, which is a good thing in my opinion.

Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime / Slime Mori Mori 2

This spin-off for DS is awesome! It’s a totally different gameplay style, you play as a Dragon Quest Slime and help rescue other slimes from being trapped by some bad guys, you also do fun tank battles where you launch stuff out of the tank, and even launch yourself, if you’re interested you should check out some gameplay footage to get a feel for how it’s like before deciding to purchase as DS games can be a bit pricey nowadays unfortunately, there’s also always emulation of course however, or a hacked 3DS, either way give this game a try!

Every other Dragon Quest game

After you play those three, play every other Dragon Quest game, totally worth it!

IN OTHER NEWS

I’ve been updating the visual look of the site quite a bit, I’m really liking how it’s looking so far now, feels pretty cool lol, I’ve also been working on using semantic markup to make the website more accessible and easier to navigate for people using screen readers, going to be learning more about that during my course so I’m looking forward to getting further along in the course! I’m excited to learn JavaScript too because I guess you can do quite a bit of cool stuff with that, I’m not entirely sure of the possibilities but I’m excited about learning them!

I also finally was able to stock up again on Maxim instant coffee, it’s a really good instant coffee from South Korea, recommend it if you don’t like instant coffee, it’s worth a try at least it might change your mind about instant coffee! It certainly changed mine.

I also stopped smoking and switched back to vaping instead, I’m feeling a lot better already, smoking really messes me up, I got a brand new vape and it’s awesome, first vape I’ve ever had that uses USB-C for charging and firmware updates which fucking rules, I had the guys at the shop I frequent make a banana menthol juice for me with additional cooling effects (they call it koolada). It’s really good, though a bit too sweet so I’m gonna take it back to have them change it up a tiny bit with a bit more menthol and a bit less sweetener! I’m currently vaping right now as I type this, yay vapes!

I think I’m gonna try to relax a bit today, have been working pretty heavily on my course and this website, have some cleaning to do today is all just tidying up the house and what not.

Also it’s cold as fuck here in Tucson! I hope it rains some more soon at least, I guess it’s possible!

Anyway have a great day!

-Ruby